Notice the countdown clock...

WE'RE IN DOUBLE DIGITS!!!! Seriously, I am so excited. When I started this blog we were at 150+ days, now we're to 99. We still have a long ways to go, but double digits is way better than triple digits. It's more like a golf score, the lower the better :) Although, last night I suggested to Brad that we just elope. I think it would be ultra convenient for everybody. I mean, really, it's a time saver. But upon further discussion about it (probably a good 30 seconds) we decided that our mother's would shove bamboo shoots up our finger nails if we did, so we're not eloping. And I really want to wear my dress. Oh, my dress...I cannot wait!

In other fantastic news from the Spain household (Timaree please don't kill me), but my sister and her boyfriend Jeromy are engaged! I am very excited for the two of them. They have been together for about a year and a half and I think Jeromy is a great guy. They are very cute (to the point of nausea) together. It's so weird, because for the longest time neither me or my sister had boyfriend or even dated that much. Times have indeed changed. I hope my parents can handle having two engaged daughters. Poor things. I don't know when Timaree and Jeromy are tying the knot, but all I know is that it better not be in August! ;)

I feel as if a 2010 wedding is now the cool/hip thing to do. The way Ray Ban sunglasses and leg warmers have come back into style, getting married in 2010 is a hip thing to do. Seriously, a lot of my close girlfriends and now my sister are doing it. I think everyone should either get married or renew their vows in 2010. All of the cool kids are doing it!

Can't win them all...

Our winning streak has come to an end. I called up Studio 1 Photography to see if they would be willing to transfer the prize we won to engagements or bridals and the answer was, no. Ugh. I was so hoping they would transfer the prize to something we could actually use, but oh well, I guess you can't win them all.

On brighter news, school is almost done! YAY! I am finishing my semester this week. I literally have a pile of work to get done by Friday, but it's do-able. I am very excited to be mostly finishing my college career this week. I have to do an internship this summer and do an organic chemistry lab. Seriously, organic chemistry never leaves me. I hate it. Oh well, I won't ever have to think about organic chemistry ever again after the summer. But things are really starting to happen for me and Brad. My roommate is moving out on Friday (hallelujah!), which means we can start cleaning and painting and packing and getting ready to move downstairs. We also purchased plants and pots for our first little garden. We have a tomato plant, red bell pepper, cucumber, rosemary, lemon thyme, chives, basil, and parsley. I am very excited!

We're at the start of a really great summer!

Seriously?

Um, me and Brad won another contest. I know, right? We won a $700 wedding day photography package from Studio 1 Photography. I honestly couldn't believe it when I listened to the message. We have won two photography packages and a 35mm camera! So, since we have already won another photography package, this is my little plan...I am going to ask Studio 1 Photography if they will take my bridals and use the other photography package for some engagements. (I'm not really excited about the other photography place. Their pictures are super old fashioned and resemble Glamour Shots a little too much, so we probably won't use those pictures for anything.) Hopefully they'll be willing to do that because we already have our wedding day photographer. (Yay for Ashley Mae Photography. She is amazing.)

Wow, I have never been this lucky in my whole life. So again, to all potential brides and grooms out there, go to the extremely awkward bridal shows and enter EVERY drawing you possibly can! Seriously, if there is a little box with a small slit in it, put your name and number in that box! You never know what can happen :)

Anyway, on the wedding planning front...Brad and I are slowly starting to make lists of the things we need to get done. We haven't really been planning because we're waiting for school to be done. (Cursed finals) We went through his chocolate recipe book and picked out recipes we might want to do for our homemade chocolate favors. I'm really excited to make those. It should be lots of fun and messy and hopefully our guests appreciate it. We're also looking at wedding announcements, tuxes, bride's maids dresses...and I know I'm forgetting about four dozen other little details that need to get done, but I cannot think of them right now.

But we're approaching the less than three month mark and the less than 100 days! Double digits baby! WOOHOO!

(P.S. The picture has absolutely no significance, but I Googled Brad, and this is what I got! HAHAHAHAHA!)

This stuff only happens in the movies

This is my best girl friend Lorraine. We met our freshman year at the University of Utah and lived together two different times for a total of two years. Next to Brad, she knows me the absolute best. We have seen each other through thick and thin; term papers, chemistry tests, bad hair days, and of course, boy drama. Believe me, we have been through the gauntlet when it comes to boys not treating us the way we should have been treated. And through it all, we have remained close friends. A couple of months after I started dating Brad, Lorraine started dating Dan. We both managed to find men that love us and appreciate us for who we are and what we have to offer. This was almost too good to be true! We were both in love and loving life. When I told Lorraine that Brad proposed, there was not one person who was more excited than Lorraine. Brad asked me to go into the other room because we were squealing so much. And this weekend, Lorraine called me to tell me Dan proposed to her. I screamed, cried, and almost jumped through the phone to hug her. I cannot believe that we are engaged at the same time! Crazy.

Two best friends, soul sisters, engaged at the same time and get to plan their weddings together! Seriously, you can't make this stuff. I am so grateful that I get to go through this process with my best friend. Dress shopping, favors, invitations, music lists, registering, the whole nine yards. It's such poetic justice, we were so mistreated and taken for granted; and now we both have our "prince charming".

Is It August Yet?

My impatience is setting in. Oh, man, I wish it were August. August 5th to be exact. Last week I had a MAJOR craving/urge/will, whatever to want to call it, to be in my dress. Seriously, I want my dress to be here so bad. It's probably a good thing that it isn't here because I am not above lounging around my house in my dress. I love that episode of "Friends" when Rachel, Phoebe, and Monica are all lounging around in wedding dresses drinking beers. I would change out the real beer for an apple beer, but still, so funny! Phoebe says such a poetic line when she says, "In my normal clothes, I look down and know this is not going to be the happiest day of my life." So true.

I feel like Brad and I are on the cusp of so many things, and it's difficult to wait. I'm graduating in a couple of weeks, we're moving me to the down stairs apartment and we start renovations on the house in exchange for reduced rent, I'm starting my internship at the Salt Lake Valley Health Department doing Tobacco Prevention, and we still have to plan a wedding. I'm just ready to get it all started. Oh well, I guess I can't wish my way to August.

Back to Organic Chemistry homework.

In It to Win It

Advice of the day to all currently planning a wedding and future brides: First, go to those slightly awkward bridal shows. I know they are overwhelming and you feel like you're telling the world that you're getting married (at one of the shows they made me wear a name tag that said "future bride", trust me, it'll be ok), but they're really not that bad. Just go. And while you are there, enter every possible drawing you can. I have deemed myself one of the unluckiest people in the world. I have never won anything in my life...except at these bridal shows! I won a bridal photography session from Inkley's portrait studios and then Brad and I won another drawing this week! Some guy called from, oh, I forget the name, but we won...drum roll please...a 35mm camera and a bunch of film! Try to contain yourself, I know it's intense. Ok, it's a little lame, but it's free, and I am not above free.

Now I'm just waiting for the phone call telling us we one a free one week cruise to Mexico. Keep your fingers crossed.

So I am probably one of the most laid back brides I know. Since Brad proposed and we secured our location and date, I have been nothing but laid back. I honestly do not care what things look like, as long as they are beautiful. This speaks to my complete lack of creativity. I really wish there were a "Martha Stewart" bone in my body, but there just isn't. I've tried. You may ask my former roommate and one of my best friends, Lorraine, how good I am at decorating. Yeah...it's not pretty. I lack creativity to create a vision of the wedding. But thankfully, I have surrounded myself with incredibly creative people that help me create a vision. Case and point, this weekend Brad and I went up to Logan to visit his family. It was Brad's birthday weekend and also General Conference. It was a great visit. While we were up there, I asked my future mother in-law if we could go and look at flowers. Brad's oldest sister, Jenni, her father in-law is a florist. (Did you follow that?) Talk about a hook up! We went over to the store and me and Brad looked through magazines picking out different flowers that we liked that fit into our color scheme. It was a lot of fun, but like most things in wedding planning, it was overwhelming. My creative senses were completely overloaded and I didn't know what to do! All I knew was what colors I wanted my bouquet and Brad's boutonniere to be (a mixture of light yellow and dark purple flowers), and what colors I wanted everyone else's stuff to be (pale yellows). I also knew what shapes I wanted the bouquets to be in. Spherical. Nothing dangling or cascading down my bouquet. Simple. And elegant. Beyond these loose set of guidelines, I had no idea what I wanted. We looked for a few minutes at the magazines and then my future sister in-law, Alisha, came up to me and said that she told the florist to do whatever they wanted within her guidelines for her wedding, and the flowers turned out prettier than she could of ever dreamed. SOLD! And that's what I did. I told them to do whatever they feel would fit my style and to just do it. So...I have no clue what my flowers are going to look like! HAHA!

I told you, I'm a laid back bride.

Wedding Nightmares

I must admit that I dream quite often about the wedding. Some might say that means I am obsessed, but I don't care. Although, last night I had a wedding nightmare. I was at The Old Meeting House, I was in my dress, and Brad was there. Everything was perfect, except, about 25 people that I didn't want at the wedding showed up. Like the people that you don't even like to see at the grocery store, you avoid them like the plague, and the last place you want to see them is at your wedding. They were "crashing" the wedding. Not a fan of wedding crashers. Needless to say, I freaked! How on earth would we get all of those people out of The Old Meeting House without hurting their feelings and especially not inviting them to dinner! As a general rule to anyone planning a wedding or will be planning a wedding, the food is the MOST expensive thing you will spend your money on. Seriously, it's ridiculous. So, having uninvited guests showing up for the food would clearly be a catastrophe! Okay, back to the dream...I was in the bride's room freaking out about these uninvited and unwanted guests at our wedding, and the people from The Old Meeting House decided that we needed to create a diversion and get all of the invited and wanted guests into the reception side of The Old Meeting House so they could start their meal, while getting the uninvited and unwanted guests off the premises. What was the diversion you ask? Alcohol. It worked like a charm. It was as if the ice cream man came to our wedding. We got rid of the unwanted guests and our guests got to eat the delicious and expensive food. It all turned out great.

Hopefully, this does not happen. First of all, I will not be paying for alcohol at my wedding and I will not be worried about hurting people's feelings I don't want at our wedding.

Wedding crashers be warned.

Not what I was thinking...

This week was Brad's birthday! YAY! He turned 23 on Tuesday, March 30th. I had all of these fun and exciting things planned for Brad. I was going to make him a delicious dinner on Tuesday and then we were going to go out to a fancy dinner at a fancy restaurant on Wednesday. I was very excited to have planned all of this and hopefully surprise Brad for his birthday.

Well, this is what I got...dinner on Tuesday night was a disaster. Seriously. An epic disaster. Nothing was cooking properly, the icing for the cake was um, interesting, to say the least, the fish was still frozen after being out of the freezer all day. Nothing was going right. It was about 9:15 when I threw in the towel and we ordered Chinese. After eating about two bites of my delicious Chinese food, I felt extremely nauseated. Like to the point of almost tossing my cookies. It was terrible. Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon, I did lose my cookies, and the fancy dinner at the fancy restaurant was out of the question. Ugh, this is not how I pictured Brad's birthday going. This was his first birthday that we have spent together and I had to go and get sick. Thanks unpredictable stomach, for nothing!

Brad, I'm sorry your birthday did not go as planned. I will make it up to you, I promise. I love you and cannot wait to marry you!

On a positive note, I know have something to improve on for next year.